There are steam rooms and then there are steam rooms. The ones at your local gym might seem hot, but it isn’t until you go to a proper Russian sauna — where the steam hits you like hot brick wall — that the sweat really starts to flow.

There are a number of Russian saunas, or “banyas,” in the Toronto area. Though some Russian Jews emigrated to the area in the 1980s, it wasn’t until the fall of Communism that Russians came to the city en masse, so their presence is much more recent and largely found outside of the central core.

Communal bath culture is not something we’ve much cultivated here in modest Canada. Japanese, Turkish and Eastern European cultures have long traditions of sitting in hot rooms and pools together. The steam room experience is captured in films like David Cronenberg’s 2007 crime-thriller Eastern Promises, where a naked Viggo Mortensen fights off Chechen gangsters in a fabulous old bathhouse in London (U.K.).

We do saunas a little differently here, with a bit less fabulousness (and gangsters, for that matter) but all the heat you can handle. Like a lot of interesting stuff around town, some of them are located in strip malls, a most versatile structure.

Some friends and I occasionally head up to the Ambassador Club in Sheppard Plaza at Bathurst St. and Sheppard Ave. W. From the parking lot it looks like a standard strip mall, with a Starbucks, bagel cafe and a Scotiabank, but through a small door and down a staircase, the club spreads out underneath these familiar shops.

The Ambassador’s grandeur is not architectural. The lobby is wood panelled, with three clocks telling Toronto, Tel Aviv and Moscow time. After change rooms, there’s a cold, backyard-sized plunge pool with naked men bobbing in surroundings much like an old downtown school gymnasium, as the club dates to the 1960s.

Through another passage are the doors to two small saunas. It’s friendly, and often we’re the only non-Russian speakers there. Men ask if we’ve been here before or if we’re “Canadian,” then tell us about sauna culture. One fellow told us that because everyone is naked, “We are all equal.” He paused and laughed, grabbing his privates, saying, “Except for this.” We all laughed too, I think.

We found another sauna in a Mississauga strip mall called Steamul Sauna, near Dundas St. and Dixie Rd. Though primarily a male ritual, the Ambassador has occasional women nights, and Steamul even has mixed “family days,” where everyone can come, though bathing suits are required.

Steamul has a brightly lit but spartan restaurant attached, where we drink supersized Russian beers for around $4 in bathrobes, followed by more sauna and pouring buckets of ice-cold water over ourselves. The cold shock can give an ice cream headache before heading back in for more heat.

Heading out into the cold winter air at midnight, we radiate heat and feel like we could run through Mississauga with no clothes on. After such extreme heat and cold, the city seems soft and calm and restful.

Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about life in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.